


To Be A Man

by LiaIsInLove



Series: Awareness [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Abuse, Abused Niall, Child Abuse, Child Niall, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Father/Son Incest, Graphic, Hurt Niall, Molestation, Neglect, Niall-centric, Parent/Child Incest, Pretty much only about Niall, Sexual Abuse, Sexual assualt, Trigger Warnings, Trigger warnings for sexual abuse, Triggers, domestic abuse, trigger warnings for abuse, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2906303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiaIsInLove/pseuds/LiaIsInLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So there he lay, beneath his covers, wide awake but pretending otherwise, frozen with dread, waiting.</p>
<p>Or the one where Niall's father shows him what it's like "to be a man."</p>
<p>Massive trigger warnings for sexual abuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be A Man

**Author's Note:**

> I found this on my computer from ages ago. I had written it for me and wound up posting it to fanfiction.net in a different fandom. Long story short, my account was deleted but if any of you have by any random chance read this before, I assure you, it is not plagiarized.
> 
> That aside, I wrote this to raise awareness. It could be extremely triggering for anyone who has suffered any form of abuse, and I beg you not to read this if you think you might be triggered.

His eyes darted to the door, willing it to stay shut. He prayed that tonight, he'd be left alone, forgotten—a wish that he knew would never come true. So there he lay, beneath his covers, wide awake but pretending otherwise, frozen with dread, waiting. His breath quickened as he heard the groaning footsteps, making their slow, drunken way up the stairs, down the hall, to his door, just outside his room. The doorknob moaned as it twisted to reveal a sliver of yellow light. Clamping his eyes shut as tight as he could, he still saw the looming shadow fill the doorway, obscuring what little light had penetrated the dark. He heard the shaky, grunting breaths, reeking of alcohol drawing closer and closer, until he could feel their acrid stench upon his face. Throbbing wildly, his heart betrayed him, eliciting a wheezy cackle,  _Excited, are we?_

_No no no no no no no._

The rough hand's sting upon his cheek forced him to open his eyes. It was time. There was no escaping his  _lesson_  tonight. Struggling, he knew, would bring only painful bruises that must be concealed by morning light. So he stayed rigid as his pajama bottoms and shorts below were ripped down. Screwing up his face, he tried to evade reality, vanishing to somewhere peaceful, somewhere quiet and lonely, somewhere without alcohol, somewhere without his father. Of course, it didn't work; it never did. He still felt every coarse touch, caustic tug, and stinging scratch. He still heard the gasping breaths, sickening thuds, and incoherent mutterings.

When it was over at long last, he stayed mutely unmoving, silently begging with every fiber of his being that tonight would not be one of  _those_  nights, that his father was not in one of  _those_  moods. He had hoped he wasn't, but of course, he was.

Dirtied and disgusted in every way possible, he fought to resist the suffocating claws around his hand. That earned him a punch to the ribs, and the threat of more. So he allowed his hand to be pulled towards the thing he wished with all his heart to never have to see again. His father's hand moving his own, he cringed as his fingers touched the vile, pulsing limb. The repulsion rising like bile inside was nothing compared to his shame. How did he let this happen, night after night after night? How could he live with himself for being so pathetic, disgusting, worthless? How could anyone stand to look him in the eyes when he submitted over and over again to this? How come he wasn't strong enough, good enough,  _man enough_  to fight this?

At the end, he was  _rewarded_  by the spilling of the sticky liquid onto his fingers. It was too common an occurrence for him to do more than suppress a shudder.  _This is what it's like to be a man,_  his father grunted, once his breathing rate had slowed back to its natural state.

Once his father had left, he crept out of bed, only to find that the door to his room was locked from the outside; he couldn't even get to the bathroom to attempt to clean the disgrace from his skin. With despair filling the thick air, he curled up in a ball on his bed, succumbing at last to bitter tears.  _If this is what it feels like to be a man, I'll never be one,_ he thought; he never wanted to be one. When he grew up, he would never be a man, he just couldn't do it. And so, while other boys his age dreamed happy dreams of adventures, and games, and sports, he cried himself to sleep, like every other night.


End file.
